OUT OF THE VALLEYS

Mixing glassfibre bodywork, V6 power and GT luxury, the Gilbern Genie and Invader steered their own sporting course from Wales

- MARTIN BUCKLEY

In '50s Britain, the arrival of glass fibre technology fuelled the craze for building Specials. It seemed that almost anybody who could wield a spanner might wake up one morning and decide to make a sports car. Many did, with varying levels of ambition and degrees of success. Gilbern, still the only commercially produced all-Welsh marque, built approximately 1000 vehicles over 15 years, so has to be counted as a qualified success. Yet ambitions were not sky-high, at least at first.

Bernard Frieze, the German former prisoner of war who founded Gilbern Sports Cars with Welsh butcher Giles Smith in 1959, was not a driven character in the mould of Colin Chapman or Jem Marsh. In the beginning, he only wanted to create a versatile, one-off car for his own use, something he could drive on the road all week then sprint, hillclimb or race at the weekend.

Though superior in conception and quality to many of its homespun ilk, his little coupé the first of 200 BMC-engined Gilbern GTs was never intended as an uncompromising work of Lotus-style lightweight engineering genius, much less a futuristic 'racing car for the road' design in the Marcos tradition.

Others, principally his business partner Smith and racing driver Peter Cottrell (who bought the second example) recognised the commercial potential in the 1959 GT. It established the concept of a handsome, unstressed, high-quality glassfibre bodyshell riveted to a square-section, steel-tube chassis and moulded mainly in one piece to achieve the best-possible panel gaps.

With a well-located live rear axle and using a variety of BMC components for the engine and drivetrain, the Gilbern found its niche quickly, while self-assembly naturally avoided the prevailing government's Purchase Tax.